


Someday you’ll feel differently about this

by casey_sms (shinygreenwords), shinygreenwords



Category: The Social Network
Genre: Angst, Community: tsn_kinkmeme, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Non Fix-It, Suicide, Translation Available, 中文翻译 | Translation in Chinese
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-25
Updated: 2011-03-25
Packaged: 2017-10-17 06:36:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinygreenwords/pseuds/casey_sms, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinygreenwords/pseuds/shinygreenwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/tsn_kinkmeme/4426.html?thread=6998346#t6998346">this prompt</a> at <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/tsn_kinkmeme/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/tsn_kinkmeme/"><b>tsn_kinkmeme</b></a>: The day Eduardo decides to finally forgive Mark and attempt to be friends (or more than) again is the day Mark commits suicide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someday you’ll feel differently about this

**Author's Note:**

> I was talking to [](http://alicedawkins.livejournal.com/profile)[**alicedawkins**](http://alicedawkins.livejournal.com/) about a secret fic of mine (which won’t be secret now but oh wells) in which Wardo fucks Mark as revenge (it’s a really old prompt from last year) and then Mark says ILU and Wardo is like lolol gotcha. Then Mark offs himself. I’ll probably never finish it because of the insane amount of wips anyway at least there’s this. Apparently writing [happyfic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/173898) makes me want to do things like this /o\
> 
> There is a [Chinese translation](http://www.mtslash.com/viewthread.php?tid=20067&page=1&extra=#pid545565) available (needs login) with much thanks to [loreleiielerol](http://loreleiielerol.livejournal.com/).

“Wardo.”

He wants to _say shut the fuck up don’t call me that, you’ve got some nerve calling me, you fucking asshole_ and he’s so, so angry. “Mark,” he says through gritted teeth.

Mark cuts to the chase. He always has. “Do you think you could ever forgive me?”

Eduardo laughs. It’s ugly sounding. Mark hasn’t even said sorry. “No,” Eduardo says.

Mark lost the right to ask anything of him the day he made Eduardo sign his own death warrant.

Eduardo hangs up.

*

Eduardo will replay the moment in his mind.

“No,” he says viciously.

“No.” he says honestly.

NO.

He says no.

(In the moment between him saying no and him hanging up, he swears he can hear Mark breathing deeply like he’s trying not to cry.

He will remind himself Mark is not his problem anymore.)

*

It takes a lot of time for him to come to terms with it. A lot of therapy. He’s had a lot of anger inside him for so long that he didn’t even know.

Today, finally, five years on, he feels ready. He thinks he can let it go. When he looks back, he can see Mark, nineteen and nervous. Mark had so many things he wanted. He was right anyway in the end and Eduardo didn’t see. Eduardo was hurt and betrayed and all he had felt was anger.

Maybe he can’t forgive Mark today but he knows he can take the step towards it. Someday, he will. He feels differently about it now. He’s older too and he knows, these things pass. He knows that withholding forgiveness is stopping him from moving on. He, too, needs to know that he can be a better person.

He has never quite managed to forget Mark. How could he? The circles they run in are so small. He doesn’t usually say anything to him but he knows Mark is there. That Mark watched him sometimes, most of the time. He watched Mark too.

To him, Mark made a decision that was like pressing a delete key on their relationship. He erased their friendship. But now Eduardo wants to CTRL + Z that.

Eduardo has slid the bar on his phone so many times, he’s worried he might actually break it. He wipes it on the hem on his shirt. The number was easy to get a hold of, too easy.

This is the hardest part.

He calls and waits.

Beep beep. Beep beep. Beep beep.

> “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” - Lewis B. Smedes

  


Mark knows he should not be alive.

He has this feeling trapped deep in his bones. He knows he does not deserve to be successful. He cheated. He stabbed his friend in the back so he could get his empire. He is a traitor. Everything good that happens to him is an aberration of the universe. It’s something wrong. He is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Chris and Dustin left him. For professional reasons.

But Mark knows.

It was what he did.

And then – what he didn’t do.

They will never forgive him.

He deserves that.

In quiet moments, he will always hear the horrible laugh followed by the clipped, cold, “No.”

No.

He hears _I will never forgive you._

No.

He hears _I can never forget what you’ve done to me._

No.

He hears _You should rot in hell._

Eduardo will never forgive him.

He doesn’t deserve forgiveness.

Eduardo won’t even look at him.

Mark doesn’t deserve that either.

It’s all Mark’s fault.

He has lived with it for so long but he’s just so tired now, so tired. He can feel it in his body, he’s worked too hard, he has ground himself down and he does not care.

There is only one way to make it right. He’s planned this. He’s felt a lot better recently. He’s had this to look forward to.

He lies to everyone.

He’s a liar.

It’s so easy.

He hopes everyone won’t hate him. Hate him more than they do already. It's okay he tells himself, he won’t have to know. He will be dead and in the ground and everyone will be better off without him.

Mark’s scared and he wants to put it off but this is for the best. He wants to ask Eduardo to forgive him. One last time. Not for himself, because he doesn’t deserve it but Eduardo should forgive him because he deserves better.

He shouldn’t talk to Eduardo. Eduardo doesn’t want to talk to him. No one talks to him anymore. When he is dead he will say nothing. And maybe they will feel bad. They will say all these good things about him but it’s too late. It’s in internet ink, it’s in print, it’s everywhere. He’s a traitor and he betrayed his only friend.

Mark is sorry.

He would have said it to Eduardo if he thought it would make a difference.

He feels so cold and he’s shivering even though he hasn’t done anything, not yet. Mark wants to call a friend like it's some goddamned game show. He wants to make it easier. To not be so alone. He wants someone to tell him it’s going to be okay.

He does not deserve it.

> ”I kneel in the nights  
> before tigers  
> that will not let me be.
> 
> what you were  
> will not happen again.  
> the tigers have found me  
> and I do not care.” – [‘For Jane’](http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Charles-Bukowski/148) by Charles Bukowski

  


This is how it ends:

Mark never picks up the phone. Instead he picks up a gun and there is a bang and that’s all it takes.

Eduardo will leave a message telling him that he would like to speak with him, to meet up with him and to call him back. He will tell Mark that he wants to start over from the beginning.

The next morning, he will wake up and he will see the headline: CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, commits suicide.

Eduardo will drop everything and it will be too late.

They can never go back.

He will remember Mark saying, “I need you.”

He will remember Mark saying, “We did it.”

He will remember Mark saying, “You signed the papers.”

He will remember Mark saying, “Do you think you could ever forgive me?”

He will remember saying, “No.”

He will remember the moment after that just before he cut Mark off and wish he didn’t let him go.

(In his memory, Mark inhales sharply.

Eduardo says, “Yes. Someday.”

Mark exhales, a sigh of relief. Mark breathes.)


End file.
